P Kharel

Precisely 30 years ago this fortnight, the now-defunct Soviet Union had engineered a military coup against the government in Afghanistan and installed a puppet regime loyal heart and soul to the world’s first communist state, and also the only superpower rival to the United States, capital of the capitalist world. The September election for presidency has given Ghani a clear majority, with the result out three months later last week. The question now is whether stability will be restored even as Ghani’s arch-rivals have already claimed election fraud.
President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah under previous arrangement that expired recently and Abdul Rashid Dostum are the key players in Afghan mainstream politics guided by the US-led West. The US-brokered a compromise in 2014 under which Ghani was installed president and Abdullah was made chief executive. Abdullah found his third try for the top job another consecutive failure, though Gen. Dostum, former Uzbek commander supports him and warns of a bloodbath if violence were perpetrated against those in the streets protesting against Ghani and his party.
US faces a stigma and not bravery in Afghanistan, where it has spent more than one trillion dollars since invading that Muslim-majority, landlocked, poverty-stricken country in 2001 with an excuse that the latter had allowed Osama bin-Laden’s Al Qaeda members. There are at least 13,000 American troops in Afghanistan. The US and the Taliban resumed talks on December 7 in Qatar. Just about the time Washington and the Taliban appeared to be close to signing a deal, Trump announced the cancellation of the talk series after an American soldier was killed. Trump had even planned to invite the insurgents to his Camp David retreat.

Desperate for deal
In a transparently hurry for a breakthrough Trump earlier this month claimed the armed militant Taliban “wants to make a deal”. This is most likely not completely accurate. Taliban spokesman Zaihullah Mujahid was less than enthusiastic when responding to the speculation triggered by Bush’s claim. However, one thing is for sure: Trump is desperately keen on signing a deal, what with election barely 11 months away and he wants a fresh four-year term at the White House. His desire for a marked improvement in the Afghan situation was reiterated by the manner in which he dashed to Afghanistan last month for a dinner with American troops.
From what has come out from their claims, the insurgents want the US troops out of Afghan soil, and, in return, Washington wants a firm commitment that the Taliban would not provide any sanctuary to jihadists. Washington seems to be also playing for an outside chance for India to have some say regarding Ghani’s fate. But Pakistan would not vehemently oppose any such proposal, having borne the brunt of the conflict in the immediate neighbouring country for 40 years.
At the same time, many Afghans might not be ready to forget non-aligned India’s support to the Soviet Union-installed government in Afghanistan, another non-aligned nation, 1979. During the decade-long Soviet intervention, Islamabad stood in direct opposition to Moscow and faced the wrath of the puppet regime in Kabul. America’s longest war has claimed the lives of 2,400 Americans and more than 38,000 Afghan civilians in 18 years.
History has repeated itself in Afghanistan. The US government meets a situation the now-disintegrated Soviet Union had faced for a decade earlier. Ironically, the press in the West frequently reminded Moscow that the Afghan people fiercely resisted foreign invasion. In the Soviet case, too, they displayed the same doggedness to expel the foreign troops. Afghan record of having repelled or defeated foreign troops is well-known. But when the time came for Washington to note the very advice it used to issue for others was apparently not thought appropriate for the preacher itself to practice.
The US has been entangled in Afghanistan for almost twice the time the Soviet counterparts had suffered. The pain and embarrassment has been deeper and greater, as the conflict drags on endlessly and there still are no less than 13,000 American troops in that ill-fated landlocked land steeped in poverty, displacement, death and destruction for four full decades. Millions have been displaced.
American people have in the recent times begun questioning the continued presence of their troops in a far-off land for so long and exacting tax payers’ money to the tune of more than one trillion dollars. The Taliban was accused of allowing the Al-Qaeda to operate from their territory when the US-led foreign troops from some two dozen allies of Washington. The Taliban was unseated from Kabul but it still has its writ operating in significantly larger territory than does the Ghani regime.
Afghan security forces have ballooned to almost thrice the number it was during the Taliban rule. They are better equipped beyond recognition from their earlier portrait; yet much remains to be desired in terms of performance and credibility. War correspondents and analysts in the US press predict a complete collapse of the Afghan security forces if the US were to pull out all its troops in the existing situation. The September 28 election recorded a dishearteningly low turnout.

Painfully prophetic
“We are never going to get the U.S. military out of Afghanistan,” Donald Rumsefeld, secretary of defense, wrote in a memo in the spring of 2002, The Washington Post cited. The remark proves to be prophetic. So blinded was the George W. Bush administration that it gave little thought to Afghan history and the implications of invading that country. The consequences of those horrendous miscalculations get translated in the hourly embarrassment Washington has suffered for so many years. In reference to some of the wars that the US has been involved in the post-World War II years, The New York Times recently editorially expressed disgust over “decades of lies”.
Walking the Taliban to the negotiating table is a daunting task. Even if a peace accord were to be brokered the issue would be whether the Taliban leaders would care to stick to the agreement’s contents both in letter and spirit. If and when peace did get restored, the country would require $ 7 billion a year for at least a decade to tidy things up, according to experts. The US has spent $130 billion in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. Much of the money is invested in supporting the 300,000 troops that are beyond the country’s means. The lion’s share of foreign aid is gobbled up by INGOs, relying on contracts and subcontracts with foreign local groups. Very little reaches the declared target group.

(Former chief editor of The Rising Nepal, P. Kharel has been writing for this daily since 1973)